TV characters in shite cars

[warch]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before (can't believe it hasn't), but it can't have escaped anyone's notice that lots of characters on TV these days seem to drive really quite quirky, obscure and often very old shiters. We all know about Simon on the Inbetweeners with his FIAT, but what about Daniel (Greg Davies) in Man Down with his Triump Acclaim or Wicky (Greg Davies again) in The Cleaner with his T2 pickup. Most recently Simon Bird's character in Everyone else Burns has a C reg Nissan something or other and Ludwig (David Mitchell) an old Saab. 

I did wonder if this was a sort of characterisation shorthand, a quirky interesting car for a quirky interesting character. Any other suggestions?

[reb]

Neflixes Sex Education is full of shite cars, so much so that when I first watched it I thought it must be set in the 90s, but then they have smartphones, so who knows?

There seems to be a theme in a lot of stuff from them that is meant to be sort of "could be any time anywhere"

[wesacosa]

The guy from Colin from Accounts drives a late 70s Toyota Cressida

 

[warch]

1 hour ago, wesacosa said:

The guy from Colin from Accounts drives a late 70s Toyota Cressida

 

I love that conversation he has about it with that bloke whose mum has just passed away.

 

[eddyramrod]

1 hour ago, warch said:

a sort of characterisation shorthand, a quirky interesting car for a quirky interesting character. 

That's exactly what it is.  Just in case the actor isn't good enough to portray the odd quirk, or perhaps the audience is too stupid to realise what the actor is doing and how the part has been written.

[richardmorris]

Richard Griffiths in pie in the Skye had a an old Saab ( b reg I think), and lots of other old stuff turned up ( vw pickup, herald, etc).

 

[wesacosa]

16 minutes ago, warch said:

I love that conversation he has about it with that bloke whose mum has just passed away.

 

I don't remember that I will rewatch 

[Missy Charm]

The new BBC drama 'Mr Loverman' is quite good for this.  One half of the principal (gay) couple drives a Mk5 Cortina estate and the other man has got a J-reg Daimler Six (or Double-Six).  Whilst there are historical flashbacks, both cars appear in the present-day set sections.  

[HMC]

New BBC series LUDWIG has as the protagonists borrowed wheels, the family saab 900. In it he is a reluctant and under confident motorist. With a manual box classic 900 at his disposal I can identify with that.

[warch]

1 hour ago, eddyramrod said:

That's exactly what it is.  Just in case the actor isn't good enough to portray the odd quirk, or perhaps the audience is too stupid to realise what the actor is doing and how the part has been written.

The thing is that back in the day, the appearance of a really shit old car in something usually meant that car was about to be destroyed (e.g. The Professionals). 

But so many characters in modern tv shows seem to drive really really old or quirky cars. Some of them play into the British comedy trope of the protagonist being a bit of a loser. Hence Mr Bean and his Mini. Others I'm not so sure. I suppose they really stand out in modern traffic.

I did like the choice of an E30 Beemer 3 Series for Danny Dyer's character in Mr Bigstuff, they were synonymous with dodgy geezers in the 90s and 00s.

3 hours ago, reb said:

Neflixes Sex Education is full of shite cars, so much so that when I first watched it I thought it must be set in the 90s, but then they have smartphones, so who knows?

There seems to be a theme in a lot of stuff from them that is meant to be sort of "could be any time anywhere"

This is really common too, both Ludwig and Everyone else Burns use really odd interiors in people's houses, like its the mid 1970s. 

[Jim Bergerac]

The aging SAAB/Volvo is a ridiculously common trope. 

[MorrisItalSLX]

29 minutes ago, Jim Bergerac said:

The aging SAAB/Volvo is a ridiculously common trope. 

Reminds me of an episode of Bones that was set in the UK where Bones turns up at the start of the episode in a G reg Volvo 240 estate for no apparent reason and then the Volvo never reappears in the episode.

[reb]

13 minutes ago, MorrisItalSLX said:

Reminds me of an episode of Bones that was set in the UK where Bones turns up at the start of the episode in a G reg Volvo 240 estate for no apparent reason and then the Volvo never reappears in the episode.

I recognise that reg from somewhere that's not there. Who knows where though.

[Barry Cade]

I always think of  The Gaffers Rover P6, and Eddy Shoestrings Mk3 'Tina estate. Also the Prospects Commer van.

 

All modern TV programmes are shite.

[Missy Charm]

Screenwriters do seem to get this stuff wrong, I think. 

In real life, non-car people tend to either drive brand new boring boxes obtained via the hire-purchase scheme du jour, boring box company cars or nearly new boring boxes bought with borrowed money.  Very occasionally, someone will have an older and/or more interesting car that they came by via tangential means such as a gift or inheritance from a car-person relative.  Also, rarely, they will be the husband/wife/relative of a car person and have a more interesting set of wheels foisted on them as the car person will inevitably be the household purchaser of vehicles.  

Inheritors and car-person WAGs/HABs sometimes, also, get upgraded to car people by virtue of forming emotional attachments to their interesting jam jars.  

Car people, on the other hand, are the all bets are off group and can and will drive anything from a brush-painted Ford 100e to 1,000 horsepower, electric purple Nissan Skyline.  There's no rhyme nor reason regarding what they like and tastes are often eclectic.  

The problem, of course, is that fictional characters also need fall into one of the two camps.  Non-car fictional people have got to behave in similar ways to non-car real people if realism is aimed at.  Non-car fictional people ought, therefore, to be driving boring cars.  Fictional car people can drive what they like; however, screenwriters and authors often don't bother to make their characters into car people when thinking about the construction of the person as a whole.  Instead, they create a typical non-car person and foist a dreadful old classic on them for no reason other than 'it looks cool'; no thought is given to why the character might own that car and the impact it would have on his/her lifestyle.  Doing that is not only lazy, it's a sign of bad writing as it evinces lack of an holistic perspective. 

One programme I thought got it right was Anthony Horowitz's 'Magpie Murders'.  The protagonist, played by Lesley Manville, had the typical telly-issue MG Roadster, but was written convincingly as someone who would own an MG Roadster in the 21st century.  That's fine.

Caveat: historical drama is different.  They often make mistakes (see ITV's Joan and the boyfriend nerking about in a 1970s BMW), but it's legitimate to have non-car people driving old cars in that context.  

[Markeh]

Harlan Coben adaptations occasionally have a bit of shite snuck in. Sure, a decent number of the characters are in whatever the German manufacturers had on their press fleets, mostly Audis...

Safe had Marc Warren's character in a proper early W163 ML with the grey bumpers (albeit on fake plates).  Stay Close had Richard Armitage in a 190E and two psycho murderers in a C6! The Stranger had a chap in an 850 T5. Disappointing lack of unusual choices in Fool Me Once.

Actually gritty crimey-type dramas are a good one for this. The Fall had a 405 meeting a sticky end and later a Mk1 V70 goes for a swim.

It'd be remiss of me not to point out Dennis Waterman's Stag in New Tricks as well.

[sheffcortinacentre]

41 minutes ago, MorrisItalSLX said:

Reminds me of an episode of Bones that was set in the UK where Bones turns up at the start of the episode in a G reg Volvo 240 estate for no apparent reason and then the Volvo never reappears in the episode.

This was probably as American audience's will recognise the Volvo & is position in the social pecking order.

[D.E]

Imo the '98 Esteem in Better Call Saul didn't make much sense. The series takes place in 2002, so this would have been a four year old car at the time.  Yet it has the looks of a knackered, end-of-life banger! If I had to pick a car for a "poor" character in a series that is set in the early 2000s, I'd have chosen something from the late 80s...

[Shite Ron]

2 hours ago, Missy Charm said:

The new BBC drama 'Mr Loverman' is quite good for this.  One half of the principal (gay) couple drives a Mk5 Cortina estate and the other man has got a J-reg Daimler Six (or Double-Six).  Whilst there are historical flashbacks, both cars appear in the present-day set sections.  

I just turned over hoping to see the cars, it is quite hard going trying to watch though so I will have to watch on I-player and fast forward past the boring parts without cars, I do like a Daimler Double Six and my all time favourite car is a Mk5 Cortina estate.

[Split_Pin]

2 hours ago, Jim Bergerac said:

The aging SAAB/Volvo is a ridiculously common trope. 

Absolutely! Reminds me initially of DI Jack Frost who drove what would have been a 12 or so year old 240 estate, and then Jonathan Creek.

For me, TV characters with shite cars is very contrived. 

TV characters with shit cars on the other hand, tells me much more about the character.

DI Frost has a Cavalier, Sierra, Volvo 240 and latterly a MK3 Astra Estate. All at the bottom of their curves at the time.

Of course, we can't forget Peter Falk in Columbo who had his Peugeot 403 Cabriolet for so long it went from a shit old wreck to an endearing classic!

 

[Richard_FM]

Steve Coogan usually is quite savvy about what cars his characters should be driving.

[AnthonyG]

Luther (Idris Elba) had a very tired looking Volvo 740. From memory all the cars in Luther were weirdly out of time, from about 15 years before it was made - his boss had a Ford Scorpio I think.

D.I. Grace (John Simm) has an Alfa 159 saloon, in a pleasant change from the standard Volvo/Saab ‘alternative cop’ tropes. Think it’s an 07 plate, albeit I imagine it’s fake.

[High Jetter]

1 minute ago, AnthonyG said:

Luther (Idris Elba) had a very tired looking Volvo 740. From memory all the cars in Luther were weirdly out of time, like 15 years before it was actually made - his boss had a Ford Scorpio I think. 

D.I. Grace (John Simm) has an Alfa 159 saloon, in a pleasant change from Volvo/Saab weirdness. Think it’s an 07 plate, albeit may well be fake.

The Alfa was an unusual choice, but they go for identifying cars, hence Morse's red one.

[somewhatfoolish]

The 80s-fest Joan has shite, but at the start she's getting into a beige RR Silver Shadow 2 within a couple of minutes, then some wideboy driving a whaletail convertible 911 like a titanic bellend. Shite appears a little later when she steals a TR7 floppytop with a nailfile and it improbably starts first time.

[plasticvandan]

The cleaner on BBC drives an acclaim

[timolloyd]

The TR7 in the Detectorists was a clever bit of car casting, I thought.

[warch]

1 hour ago, timolloyd said:

The TR7 in the Detectorists was a clever bit of car casting, I thought.

Doesn’t that belong to Mackenzie Crook? 

[Dobloseven]

Remember an episode of Rebus where he's driving a Mercedes of some sort,190 or C Class, possibly,which is endlessly breaking down.Eventually he takes it to some waste ground,sets fire to it and reports it stolen.

[reb]

4 minutes ago, Dobloseven said:

Eventually he takes it to some waste ground,sets fire to it and reports it stolen.

I remember growing up there was burnt out cars everywhere, all of the time.

It's been years since I saw one. In about 2016 me and dad found a brand new astra that was still warm. We reported it to the police, which was a pain because it was before they used w3w for rural locations so the call handler had no idea where we were talking about since it was on an unclassified road.

Then in about 2018 I found a burnt out Shogun, which I have a proper darkroom print of a photo of its engine bay on my mantlepiece. 

Both of these were notable because they were the first I'd seen in years. Except for a couple in an abandoned rail tunnel that had been there as long as I've been alive.

[wesacosa]

1 hour ago, warch said:

Doesn’t that belong to Mackenzie Crook? 

I believe it did but sold at Mathewson's recently (was on an episode of Bangers and Cash)